


you can never tell (with eyes downcast remix)

by Gerec



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Child Abuse, Dubious Consent, M/M, Time Skips, Underage Sex, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:42:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24937744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gerec/pseuds/Gerec
Summary: Kurt lets himself get caught. Charles loses, even when he wins.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier mentioned, Kurt Marko/Charles Xavier
Comments: 15
Kudos: 53
Collections: X-Men Remix 2020





	you can never tell (with eyes downcast remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ireliss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ireliss/gifts).
  * Inspired by [with eyes downcast](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21558478) by [Ireliss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ireliss/pseuds/Ireliss). 



> Warning for physical (Cain) and sexual (Charles) abuse of underage characters.

"You can never tell anyone,” Kurt says, an urgent plea to the boy in his arms. Charles’ eyes burn like the chill beyond the mansion’s walls; his gaze every bit as penetrating, pinning him like a butterfly mounted in glass. Anticipation drives him, though his hands tremble and his vision blurs, fingers digging reflexively into that too slight frame. “ _Never_.”

Charles gasps, and then pushes up against Kurt with a reedy sigh.

"Never,” Charles promises, and leans in to kiss him.

**

Charles is still rather small for a nine year old boy, with soulful eyes and a nose that’s slightly too large for his face. Curious, well-spoken and with manners befitting old money, he’s a child to make any parent proud - and a far cry from the brash simpleton that Kurt is saddled with for a son. He says as much to Brian one day, after golf and then dinner at the country club, as they share whiskey and cigars and muse on the trajectory of their children's futures.

“Yes, he’s very bright, and he has an aptitude for study and the sciences,” Brian agrees, with a slight quirk of his red, red lips. Already, young Charles bears a striking resemblance to his handsome father, with the same dark hair and blue eyes and effortless, charming grace. “I’m sure he’ll do quite well with the business, if he chooses to follow in my footsteps.”

“Why wouldn’t he?” Kurt asks, because he’s seen the boy with his father, and it’s obvious how much Charles admires Brian and craves his approval. “If he likes it, and he’s good at it?”

Brian chuckles a little then, expression soft and fond, and Kurt wishes he liked Cain even half as much as his friend doted on young, impressionable Charles. “Well yesterday he wanted to be a pilot, and the day before that he wanted to be a journalist. I'm sure it'll be a while yet before he figures out his true passion."

He watches his friend laugh; the way Brian's throat bobs around a large mouthful of whiskey and stifles the urge to lash out with something appropriately biting. What could a man like Xavier know about finding his passion? When he's never had a single desire to live beyond the exact life that he leads?

Instead Kurt replies, resentment buried deep, "I'm sure it'll be fine. You'll be there to guide him after all."

"I'll certainly try," Brian says. He leans into Kurt's space, always so affable, lacking any awareness to the way his presence stirs the people in his orbit. Grasping Kurt's shoulder, he gives it a companionable squeeze, a casual cruelty delivered with affection. "He's stubborn though, like his mother. If he decides he wants something…well, I'm not sure I could stop him."

Kurt snorts, and pulls himself purposefully - if reluctantly - from the warmth of Brian’s touch. "Then let's hope he makes good choices."

**

He spends a lot of time with the Xaviers, after the accident, doing what little he can to help with matters of the funeral and the settling of the estate. Brian's absence is palpable, in those early autumn days, casting a somber pall over Graymalkin that never truly dissipates. Devastated by the loss, Sharon retreats inside herself and turns to the bottle, oblivious to anyone else's pain or heartache. And he watches a ten-year-old wander the mansion’s halls and its extensive grounds, alone and forgotten, unable to comprehend the sudden loss of not one, but _both_ of his parents.

**

"He's a good kid," Kurt says from the window, watching the boy shuffle across the soft powdered sand, shoulders hunched and arms wrapped absently around his stomach. It's a pitiful sight, made more so by the peaceful surroundings, speaking to a lonely misery that can't be fixed by blue skies and gentle waves. He's never been more disgusted with Sharon, he realizes, than here in this swanky beach property in the Hamptons, noting the way her manicured hands tremble as she pours her fourth glass of the day.

It's an expensive French Riesling from the Xavier cellar, being guzzled like water, by someone who has never had to read a damned price tag in her overprivileged life. 

"He just wants your attention."

She pins him with an icy glare, back stiff and blonde head held high (and how she manages to look down her nose down at him when he's six foot three is an utter mystery) refusing to bear any of Kurt's judgement and barely veiled disdain. The sneer is incongruous to the delicate lines of her face, once beautiful now twisted with a grief he too holds close and can't say aloud. In this they are two peas in a rotten pod, though her pride refuses to take solace where it's offered.

"I should say the same about Cain," she says, her crisp, upper-class accent marred by a barely discernible slur. "Tell me - does his constant fighting and misbehaving make you want to spend more time with him?"

"It's hardly the same. Charles is still trying to deal with losing Brian. And unlike _my_ son, he's perfectly well behaved; smart, polite, and eager to please. I don't see how you could even make the comparison."

"He's too needy."

"He's _eleven._ "

"Fine, you want me to say it? I'll say it. I can't stand to look at him," Sharon shouts, and it's the only time she raises her voice in his presence, showing the hidden web of cracks in her impeccable composure. For a moment she lets him glimpse it - her despair, how desperately she's floundering for air - and Kurt _feels_ for her, in a way he never has since she married his best and oldest friend. "He's reminds me so much of Brian and I just...I don't know how...without seeing _his_ face." 

He doesn’t know either, how to handle such a loss; how to keep his dark impulses at bay without Brian’s sunny optimism to drive the shadows away. But they will all have to muddle through somehow, in the days, years...an entire lifetime that follows.

“I’ll help you, with the boy,” Kurt offers. He's carefully neutral with his words, unable to muster any genuine sympathy for Sharon, and knowing that she would balk at being pitied, whether real or perceived. “I can be there for him, for both of you…whatever you need.”

Already he can see her retreating behind that flawless mask, as her frosty gaze pierces through the multi-layers of his own façade. While Brian would see the good in people, often to his own detriment, Sharon certainly does not, so much more pragmatic and cynical and selfish to the core.

The same traits she sees clearly in Kurt Marko, easily discerning the motivation (or one of them at least) behind his overture of support.

“And the business too, Kurt? I'm sure you're eager to help with my husband’s fortune too, am I right?”

“One does not preclude the other, dear Sharon." He joins her at the bar and pours himself a finger of whiskey under her cold, baleful gaze. "Let me help, and I’ll keep the vultures on the Board away from you and your son.”

Sharon rolls her eyes but doesn't pull away when he reaches to take her hand. "The lesser of two evils, Kurt?"

"That, or 'the Devil you know'."

**

She takes an unopened bottle with her, as she heads up the stairs, and he leaves to join Charles outside on the near empty beach. The boy smiles when he sees Kurt appear at his side, almost giddy to have someone paying him even the slightest bit of attention. And when Kurt touches him – slathering too much sunscreen all over that soft, porcelain skin – Charles laughs and squirms like a fish out of water, inching ever closer until he’s slinging his legs over Kurt’s with a childish giggle.

They walk together in the surf, words pouring out of Charles as though it’s a novelty to have someone around to listen, and actually enjoy his presence.

The thought comes, as he catches a glimpse of Charles' upturned face, head tilted _just so_ and eyes shielded from the sun--

The resemblance is uncanny, to the boy – a friend, his best and only – he remembers from those long-forgotten days.

He _knows_ somehow, without any rhyme or reason, what will happen if he wants it to _be_. That Charles will come to _him_ , if he just lets things unfold in good time, and give the boy the affection he so desperately needs. The sudden clarity hits like a gut punch, rocking him to the core; _he can have_ _this_ , like he couldn’t…didn’t… _before_.

**

What Charles lacks in experience he makes up for in enthusiasm, his kisses rough and unwieldy with a little too much tongue. He climbs onto Kurt’s lap and peels out of his shirt, so very eager to be despoiled by a man three times his age. Utterly beautiful, with smooth, unblemished skin, Charles is a vision of innocence that takes his breath away. It is a wonder that will never cease to astound and amaze; that it is Kurt who gets to taste, and Kurt who makes him shiver.

Kurt who makes him come apart, breathless and gasping his name. 

“I’m not sorry,” Charles says, as Kurt wipes him clean with some tissues, panting and wrung out from his first experience with sex. “I liked it. I want to do it again.”

“We’ll see,” is what Kurt answers in return, knowing it won’t deter the boy either way, no matter what he says. At fourteen, Charles is learning to recognize his needs, and will likely go searching for someone his own age to explore those desires. It would be a shame, if this turns out to the be the one and only time, though Kurt at least has no regrets – or at least none that can’t be filed away and judiciously forgotten.

He can only _try_ , and stay away if Charles decides never to revisit things again with Kurt—

It’ll be the boy’s decision, and his move, as it’s always been.

**

But Charles does come to him again, over and over, and Kurt is too weak and too greedy to ever say no or turn him away from his bed.

**

“I know what you do with him,” Cain snarls, his eyes bright with fury, a bruise purpling from Kurt’s vicious backhand. “Is that why he’s your favorite? ‘Cause he lets you bend him over and fu—”

“Shut up!” He hits Cain again, his mind – his entire being – drowning in a sea of a burning, white hot rage. “Shut the fuck up, you useless piece of shit! If you say _anything_ …breathe a word of it to anyone…”

Cain’s mouth twists in an ugly sneer, but his eyes are wet, and it only makes Kurt want to shove him harder against the wall. “Or what? Ignore me? Treat me like garbage? Hit me when you don’t like what I have to say?”

He’s said similar words to his own father, before getting the belt; wore the same defiant, angry hurt on his face, and thinking the same ugly, poisonous things…

No, he won’t lose everything he’s fought his whole life to get, not for _anyone_ , and certainly not the useless little idiot wearing his face.

“I’ll make you regret it, boy, is what I’d do. Regret crossing me, for the rest of your goddamn life.”

**

He waits for an end that doesn’t come, for Charles’ attention to drift as his horizons expand beyond the mansion’s four walls. There’s a listless yearning in him that never quite fades, no matter the part Charles plays; perfect son or earnest student, a good boy friendly to all and close to none. He’s inexplicably drawn to Kurt, as much as Kurt can’t stop watching, and waiting for Charles; a compulsion, where one is the drug, and the other, the addict. 

“I let a boy fuck me,” Charles says one day, flippant and bored, interrupting Kurt in the study looking over contracts for Xavier Corp. “He thinks he’s in love with me, so l let him do it to me after school. In the bathroom.”

“Did you enjoy it?” He doesn’t bother looking up from the papers all over his desk, knowing how much it annoys Charles when his declarations don’t get the desired response. 

“No.” Charles huffs a sigh as he sprawls back onto the leather couch, his eyes boring into Kurt’s with a stubborn glint. “It was awful. Does that make you feel good to hear? Do you want me to hate it with the others, so I’ll only want it with you?”

“Is that what you really think?”

“I think you want me.”

“I always want you.”

Charles’ frown eases a little, when Kurt finally moves to join him on the couch, throwing his legs around his waist so he can straddle his stepfather’s lap. They share a slow kiss, with Charles taking the lead, smirking as he grinds his pert bottom all over Kurt’s aching prick. It’s a familiar dance they do, following the same established steps; Charles teasing and pushing at his limits, relishing the hold he has over an impatient Kurt--

And then submitting utterly to his touch, taking it beautifully, _welcoming_ it, getting lost in a shared haze of raw, carnal lust.

It’s a happiness he didn’t think possible, and contentment he doesn’t deserve. But no one has ever accused Kurt Marko of being a good man, least of all himself.

**

The girl is pretty, if fairly non-descript, sporting brown hair and eyes and a comely smile. She has good manners, which appeases Sharon only a little, as – Mara? Moira? – doesn’t come with a pedigree suitable for the wealthy Xaviers. It’s something Kurt has in common with the girl, he muses, watching with wry amusement as she attempts half-hearted small talk, floundering in her attempts to impress an apathetic Sharon. He remembers it all too well, being the awkward outsider once - the pursed lips and frosty welcome he received the first time Brian brought his new friend to Graymalkin.

Sharon leaves before dessert is even served, sparing barely a glance at the others still seated at the dining room table. Off to drink another bottle or two, no doubt, and away from a sullen, moping Charles, who sits and picks at his crème brûlée without a sound. The girl is clearly unsettled by the awkward silence that follows, sending a half pleading look in Kurt’s direction, seeking his help or perhaps a timely distraction. But he bears no desire to make things easier, for an interloper in over her head, and simply leaves them on their own to deal with the fallout.

Hours later, Charles joins him in his bedroom, drinking straight from the bottle of scotch he brought from the bar downstairs. Clearly, he’s still smarting from his mother’s indifference, though Kurt would have thought he’d be used it, after all these years. He knows the boy is smarter than this, bashing his head against an immoveable object, and can find little sympathy for his endless, pointless quest for his mother’s affection.

Seventeen is old enough to know there are some things that can’t be done; some _people_ that will always remain beyond reach.

He takes the half empty bottle away, setting it on the nightstand as Charles crawls under the covers and joins Kurt on the bed.

“Not staying with your lady friend?”

“I put her in one of the guest rooms,” Charles says, wrapping his arm around Kurt and resting his head on his chest. “I don’t know why I brought her home for Thanksgiving. It was a such a fucking disaster.”

“Hmm.” His fingers curl absently through the soft bed of curls, finding a rhythm to their familiar routine. “Don’t you though? You must have known what would happen, bringing a girl home to meet your mother. A scholarship kid with a couple of working class parents…that was never going to win her any points with Sharon.”

“I know.”

Kurt chuckles. “Then you must not like the girl--Mira, was it?”

Charles groans, “It’s _Moira_. I only said her name a dozen times over dinner.”

“Moira then. Did she do something to annoy you? Is that why you dragged her all the way out to Westchester to suffer through one of our cozy family dinners?”

Instead of answering, Charles slips his hand between the buttons of Kurt’s pajama shirt, and digs his fingers into his chest hair. “I like her a lot. She’s lovely and smart and has a great sense of humor.”

“Then why are you here? Is the sex not very good?”

Charles splutters, “No! It’s fine, she’s great. It’s just…”

“Just what?”

He _knows_ , as he's always known, and yet he still wants to hear Charles say the words out loud.

"It’s not the same…it’s not like it is with you."

He scoffs - of course the wisp of a girl can’t give him what he craves; what he’s used to getting from a man of Kurt’s experience and stature. Rolling them over, he grabs Charles’ arms and pins them above his head, the boy’s pupils going wide and dark at his rough, possessive handling. “Well then tell me what you want me to do. Ask me. I’ll never deny you.”

He thinks that Charles will stop and say no, this time and every time they’ve been together; that he’ll put an end to this thing between them that cannot be named. But Charles needs him, still so desperate to be wanted, and _loved._ And Kurt…

Kurt can never stop wanting him and doesn’t care to try.

Charles shudders, his erection rock hard as he grinds his hips against Kurt’s much heavier bulk. “I want…I want you to fuck me. I want to feel it, the bruises, all over my skin. I…I want…”

He squeezes a little harder, at Charles’ wrists between his fingers, his gut twisting with pleasure at the way Charles gasps and writhes a little from the pain. “Say it. I won’t tell.”  
  
“Hurt me,” Charles whispers, his face flushed with yearning and shame. “Make it hurt, please Kurt. It’s what I want.”

He does.

He’s always been so eager to please him.

* * *

The service is a short one, the gathered mourners huddled close to ward off the bitterness of a late January snow. Most of the people there are Kurt’s business associates, or employees from Xavier Corp., a token show of respect for their long time President and CEO. Charles and Cain are the only two that can be counted as family, though perhaps Cain would disagree; _his_ father – the one who might have cared for him once, perhaps even loved him – died long ago, soon after they buried his mother Marjorie when Cain was only three.

Charles wraps his arms around himself, half listening to the priest as he says the last prayer of committal. The grave site is a few rows from where his own parents are buried, in adjoining plots that his mother purchased when his father died all those years ago. It seems apt, that Kurt’s resting place is here – close, yet distinctly apart from the Xaviers – for the man had never truly been _family_ , neither a real husband to Sharon, nor a true stepfather to Charles.

Head held high, Cain strides purposefully away once they lower the casket, never once looking back, leaving Charles on his own to say a final goodbye. 

Charles isn't sure if he's up to the task.

There's a light dusting of snow now, blanketing the world in white, the flakes akin to fairy lights as they disappear into the dank earth at his feet. Charles thinks about Kurt, of how small and frail he looked on white satin, mere shadow of a presence that once towered over every aspect of his life. He wonders what he will do now, without Kurt around to want him, and love him when no one else could; if he'll ever find someone who looks at him the same way - eyes dark, blazing a trail of heat and lust and burning desire, sinful and inescapable upon his damnable soul.

Perhaps Erik, if Charles chooses to let him in; if he gives in to that long simmering tension, certain to drown him - drown them _both_ \- in sheer bliss and in utter ruin. 

Kurt can give him no answers, nor absolution from their sins...

Silence is the only thing he leaves behind. 

"You'll never tell," Charles says, the bitterness of freedom like ash on his tongue. He shrugs his coat tighter to ward off the chill, and then turns to follow the path – already half-buried – of Cain’s footsteps in the snow.


End file.
